[1] The theatre was the first in New York to be lit entirely by electricity, popularized the chorus line and later introduced white audiences to African-American shows.

It hosted a number of long-running comic operas, operettas and musical comedies, including Erminie, Florodora, The Vagabond King and The Desert Song.

As the center of the Broadway theatre district moved uptown, north of 42nd Street, the Casino closed in 1930.

It was demolished the same year, along with the nearby Knickerbocker Theatre, to make way for the expanding Garment District.

In 1898, it was host to the premiere of Clorindy, or The Origin of the Cake Walk, the first African-American musical to be presented before a white audience.

[2] Over the next decade, the theatre continued to present musicals and operettas, some of the most successful being A Chinese Honeymoon (1902), The Earl and the Girl (1905) and The Chocolate Soldier (1909).